


an eternity of this

by EvaLark



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complex relationships, F/M, Movie Fusion, One-Shot, Some Swearing, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29481696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvaLark/pseuds/EvaLark
Summary: Christine Daae has no idea why she ends up here, of all places - on an empty stage in the empty music department of her alma mater, late at night no less, on Valentine’s Day. There are a lot of things she doesn’t know anymore.But she’s here, and he is too, and maybe that’s enough.A Phantom of the Opera modern AU, heavily inspired by the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny & Christine Daaé
Comments: 15
Kudos: 26





	an eternity of this

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind back in December ago (it’s got Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in it and it’s absolutely lovely), and I almost immediately wondered what a crossover with Phantom would look like. Hence this odd little one-shot, very modern, very AU. (dw, still working on Angels)
> 
> Some necessary context, if you haven’t seen the film: in this world, there exists technology that can select and erase your memories of a specific person (it’s popularly done to get over breakups, losses, etc.). The procedure is simple - you arrange for technicians to erase your memories in your sleep. Christine and Erik break up before the start of this fic’s present day; Erik erases his memories of Christine, and when Christine finds out, she erases her memories of Erik in retaliation. [The flashbacks (italics) are Christine’s memories as they’re being erased, in sequence from most to least recent.] 
> 
> The present day takes place eight months after their double erasure, two years after they first met.

**an eternity of this**

She hates the rain. Really, truly hates it. She doesn’t like the way it smears her glasses and seeps into her shoes and soaks through to her bra, icy cold and clammy. If only she’d looked up the weather forecast before leaving for the university - she isn’t even carrying her umbrella.

But it isn’t her fault, not really - she’d hardly been _planning_ to come here… 

Wet squishes against her socks with every rapid step she takes down the empty avenue, shivering in the deluge of rare February rain. If she’d stayed at Mrs. Giry’s house, she would be dry and toasty warm right now, nursing her fourth or so homemade hot spiced punch. First time home in months, first time reuniting with most of her friends and relatives in just as long, and she just had to go ditch her own homecoming party less than two hours in without telling anyone. 

It’s official - she’s a lunatic. 

If her phone weren’t silenced right now, she thinks it might be blowing up with missed calls, concerned text messages, angry ones too. What can she say? _I’m sorry, I stepped out for air and a walk suddenly sounded nice. I’m sorry, I wandered onto the train and now I’m twenty miles out of town. I’m sorry, I know I should’ve said something, but I couldn’t go one more second without setting foot on campus again…_

She’d left without saying a word, because when she’d stepped outside the Giry house, she hadn’t known where she was going herself.

Lunacy. Sheer lunacy.

But somehow she can’t bring herself to regret leaving the party in the first place, even in her present state, feeling and probably looking like a drowned rat. She’s grateful, of course, endlessly grateful for those who had turned up, and on Valentine’s Day of all days - her best friend Meg, friends and colleagues from university still living in the area, her ex-turned-good-friend Raoul, elderly Valerie Brown from next door to the house she’d grown up in, her thesis advisor Dr. Reyer and one-time music history instructor Professor Khan, several cousins she truly hadn’t seen in forever - and of course, Meg’s party-hosting mother, whom she thinks she’ll always call Mrs. Giry despite having earned the right to “Amanda” half a decade ago. It had been a splendid party, at least for the first hour or so; she’d enjoyed herself, after getting over the pleasant shock of seeing how many people had turned out simply to welcome her home. 

Granted, she hadn’t been home since last May, and it was also something of a celebration party for the long months she’d just spent in Paris, completing one of the most prestigious postdoc fellowships in the musical world. But it had been humbling all the same, to realize for the first time in years that she had a hometown and a _family_ , an eclectic mishmash of people but a family all the same. 

Then why does she feel like there’s something missing, like a critical note omitted from a chord progression, or an entire cadenza wiped clean from the page?

She hurries down the avenue, shivering, lifting her eyes every so often to squint through raindrop-speckled glasses until she finally sees it - the entrance to the university.

➳ ➳ ➳

_She marches down the hall, heart pounding to the double-rhythm of determination and fear, and she’s only steps away from his office before Professor Khan is blocking her path._

_“Ms. Daae, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”_

_“Nadir,” she grits out, because fuck formalities when they already know more of each other than any average professor and doctoral candidate would or should. “Nadir, get out of my way. I’m ready to talk to him. I_ need _to talk to him. I can’t just leave it like this.”_

_“Ms. Daae - Christine,” Professor Khan amends, and it’s the uncharacteristic desperation in his tone that keeps her from simply darting around him. “You have to understand, Erik doesn’t take things like this well. Hell, he doesn’t take anything well. You must understand how much you impacted him when you broke things off.”_

_Christine’s eyes are suddenly filling with tears and she swipes at them, angrily. Enough is enough. “I know,” she mutters, eyes downcast. “I know - I was angry, I mean, you know the shit he pulled, the things he said -”_

_“Believe me, I know,” Professor Khan cuts in, and it’s a shock when his hands land on her upper arms, rooting her in place; her eyes dart up to his. “I know, and I mean it when I tell you you can’t talk to him right now. Or ever again, for that matter.”_

_Christine starts. “What the - Nadir, you have no right -”_

_“Christine, when you left, Erik gave you up for good,” Nadir says, sadder than she’s ever heard him before, silencing her immediately. “He was absolutely sure that you’d never want anything to do with him again, and he thought he deserved it. I mean, he did - you’d best believe me, I almost tore him apart myself when I found out what he’d done. But I never thought he’d actually go and - do what he did.”_

_Her blood runs cold. “What did he do? God, Nadir, if you let him hurt himself -”_

_“No, no, nothing like that.” Nadir shakes his head vehemently. “But… damn it, this shouldn’t be coming from me. When Amanda called and told me you were on your way here, and she hadn’t told you yet, I got here as fast as I could. It should be her, not me.”_

_“Nadir, you’re really scaring me. What happened to Erik?”_

_Nadir takes a breath, his eyes darting everywhere at once before landing on her feet._

_“He erased you.”_

_She blinks. “What?”_

_“He erased you.” And Nadir’s talking, talking, talking like it’s easier now that he’s gotten it out, like he assumes Christine is capable of absorbing any of this in a healthy way. “He couldn’t stand it, losing you and knowing he was the sole reason why. He was convinced that you were gone for good, that you hated his guts, that you’d hate him forever. So he made an appointment without telling anyone and had you erased from his memory. He turned over everything that reminded him of you - I actually went and picked it up, I thought it’d be a shame to have all that sitting locked up in storage space somewhere. Figures it’d be mostly a crap ton of sheet music, heh. I can actually give it to you, if you want it, but the bottom line is - Erik doesn’t remember you anymore. As far as he knows, you’re a doctoral candidate he doesn’t teach and you’ve never crossed paths.”_

_Nadir finally seems to notice the way she’s swaying, bracing one hand on the wall for support. “Christine? Are you alright? Damn it, I knew it should’ve been Amanda -”_

_“No,” she says, and it’s all she can manage. “No no no no no. No. No way in hell Erik erased me. He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t dare! Not after everything - no, you’re messing with me, Nadir.”_

_“Christine -” but she’s brushing past him, latching onto the doorknob, twisting, shoving open the door she’s opened a thousand times, stepping into the office as Nadir sputters behind her._

_“Erik!” she yells._

_And there he is, sitting at his desk grading papers, red ink pen in hand. It’s a sight so familiar, so incredibly endearing that she almost forgets the last time they’d seen each other, all tears and anger and awful, dangerous obsession. How many times had she walked in to find him like this, working away in his office only to snap his attention to her with all the adoration in the world?_

_The look he’s giving her right now, though, is nothing more than guarded._

_“Can I help you?’ he says, audibly taken aback yet polite, and something in Christine’s gut begins twisting violently. “Nadir?” Erik says, gaze flicking over Christine’s shoulder. “Professor Khan, is there something going on?”_

_“No, everything’s fine, Erik,” Nadir says. Christine wants to pound on his desk and cry,_ Erik, Erik talk to me! Stop being so goddamn polite! _But Nadir keeps talking. “Ms. Daae thought she wanted to ask you something, but she just remembered what the answer was. She’ll be going now, right, Ms. Daae?”_

 _Wrong. “Erik, talk to me,” she says, not even caring that she’s almost begging, drawing ever closer to his desk and to_ him _. “Erik, please. I forgive you. We can get through this. We can make this work.”_

_He tilts his head. “Make what work, Ms. Daae?” he asks smoothly, curiously, and there is nothing of the expressions he typically gives her in his eyes right now. None of them - love, adoration, admiration, lust, obsession. Nothing. “I’m afraid I’m a bit lost.”_

_She can feel the world fall out from beneath her feet._

_“Erik,” she whispers, pleading, but then Nadir is guiding her out into the hallway and shutting the door behind her._

_“It’s for the best. Go to Paris, live your life, Christine. It’s all he ever wanted,” he says, rubbing her shoulder once before letting go. She can’t respond. She watches Nadir fix her with one last sad, apologetic smile before turning around and walking away, disappearing into the end-of-term bustle of students and faculty in the corridor._

_“It’s for the best,” she repeats in a hollow whisper._

_She watches as the hallway slowly fades into black until, all of a sudden, she can’t quite remember what she’d come there for._

➳ ➳ ➳

The campus gate is closed, locked tight, and she frowns. It’s late at night on a Sunday, sure, but that’s no reason for the university to lock its gates. The spring term is well underway and there are always people weaving in and out of the facilities late at night - professors leaving their offices, grad students using the libraries or labs or practice rooms, the occasional clandestine tryst. She shivers and hops up and down, peering through the gate to see a deserted courtyard through the falling rain. Then again, it _is_ nighttime on the most romantic day of the year, and the vast majority of the campus population has probably got better things to do than to… well, stay on campus.

No, that’s not quite right; she has vague memories of several local ensembles using university facilities to hold auditions, just about this time last year. Exactly this time last year, in fact, on Valentine’s Day - she remembers it well now, the muttered complaints in the hall, people delaying their special romantic dinners just to be at this audition or that. She wonders if it’s happening again, those auditions. Had it been raining a year ago, too? Perhaps. 

There has got to be an open gate somewhere.

Why is this so important to her?

She ponders this as she hurries along the gated perimeter of the north side of campus, willing the next gate to come into view. She can’t say what had compelled her to the train station in the first place, only that she _had_ been compelled; and then once she’d gotten there, there had been nowhere to go other than aboard the train to the university. So she had, and then she’d arrived - wandered off the train into the small station she knew as well as the back of her hand, and then no sooner had she walked outside than it had begun to rain, a freezing downpour that had almost sent her scurrying right back into the station.

But she hadn’t, and instead she is left to marvel at her own irrationality as she turns the corner and spots the open gate, ominous and blurry in the pouring rain, against a backdrop of black sky. It looks more forbidding than she remembers from all those months ago; cold foreboding creeps across her skin but she shakes it off with a shiver, and shoulders on.

Everything’s a bit off, these days.

It’d been particularly difficult last May, for whatever reason, when she’d boarded the plane to Paris with three suitcases, a long-overdue haircut, and a sinking sense of _wrongness_ in her gut that had taken the better part of the summer to truly fade away. She’d gotten busy and it’d gotten better, slowly but surely, though it - whatever it was - had surged upward, a burst of bewilderment when Raoul had arrived, awkward and unsure for no reason before they’d settled back into a comfortable familiarity aided by the novelty of exploring a new city with an old, old friend. 

At the party, she’d spent all of ten minutes catching up with Raoul. He’d stayed in Paris nearly the entire summer, so it’d been only a matter of months since she’d seen him last, and there had been nothing particularly gripping on her end to update him on. 

Far more intriguing had been her noticing the impassioned conversation between Mrs. Giry and Professor Khan.

She racks her brain but can’t remember how Professor Khan and Mrs. Giry had gotten so close, even knowing full well that they are employed by the same institution - Amanda Giry as a ballet instructor, Nadir Khan a tenured professor specialized in the Islamic arts. She’s known the Girys for forever, but the last time she’d seen Professor Khan had been at her graduation ceremony last May and she can’t remember seeing him interact with Mrs. Giry at the event at all.

She’d been at a loss, then, when she’d found them chatting away like an old married couple over by the punch bowl, only for them to stop and smile at her as she’d passed by.

“Christine, sweetheart,” Mrs. Giry says, waving her in. “You remember Nadir. He tells me you were an outstanding student in his class.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she demurs. She’d fulfilled one of her electives by taking Professor Khan’s renowned Islamic music history class during her second year of the DMA program. “I did enjoy it very much.”

“Always good to hear, Miss Daae,” Professor Khan says warmly, and she responds with, “Please, call me Christine,” and Mrs. Giry eventually drifts away as they strike up a conversation that is, at first, the very definition of cordial. They exchange the usual pleasantries - he insists she call him Nadir, and she acquiesces - and it’s not long before they are chatting like close acquaintances, and he’s talking about his wife Rookheeya, and then he’s asking her if she’s met anyone in her eight months abroad. 

She laughs a little. “No, no Paris fling, nothing like that. It’s been… uneventful these past few years, you know how it is.”

“I see.” There’s a flash of… _disappointment_ in his eyes, it seems, and then Professor Khan is smiling softly at her. “Well, I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed the city, and please know you can talk to me anytime, Christine. I like to keep up with my former students.”

She smiles back politely and nods, even as her face reddens. God, had she really just said that - confessed her sad lack of a love life to her _professor’s_ face? Former professor, granted, and it’s not like they aren’t both adults - but what she can’t wrap her head around even as she begins to blabber stilted apologies is how it’d slipped out without thinking, as if he were a good friend and not her former theory teacher, a man she barely knows.

From any other older man, his words would perhaps be creepy, but for whatever odd reason, she feels… safe. As well as completely, utterly mortified.

“Christine,” Professor Khan says, cutting off her ramble. “I should be the one apologizing. Forgive me - I understand my query was unprofessional, but I did mean what I said.” He shakes his head a little and looks right into her, earnest and kind. “You deserve to be happy.”

Happy? She _is_ happy. A little bored, perhaps - but no sooner does the thought flit across her brain than she feels horribly guilty. She’s just spent eight months in Paris, for crying out loud! It hadn’t been _boring!_ There she had been for the better part of a year, doing research and rehearsing and performing with some of the most accomplished musicians around in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and she’d just had the gall to deem it _boring._ She can’t believe herself.

She’s ungrateful, that’s what she is. Longing for something she can’t even name when she’s practically got the whole world at her feet. 

Her feet carry her down the puddled campus path as if she’s a woman on a mission. Professor Khan had been right about one thing, back at the party: she _had_ enjoyed Paris, immensely. The opportunity of a lifetime, and she’d taken full advantage of it. She’d learned so much and done so many things; she’d gotten to know the city like the back of her hand. She’d gone on a few dates here and there, and if they’d all sizzled out in short order, pleasant enough but immemorable, then what of it?

“You can talk to me anytime, Christine,” Professor Khan had said with such warm certainty, and what she can’t puzzle out is _why._

➳ ➳ ➳

_“Chris, talk to me. Please.”_

_The last thing she wants to do is talk._

_“Christine, please say something. I need to know you’re okay.”_

_“I’m okay.”_

_The sound of his breathing is loud in the car. “No, you’re not.”_

_“What do you want me to say, Raoul?” she snarls, and if Raoul is suddenly turning wide eyes on her, cringing away as if he’s been physically slapped by the vitriolic force of her voice, she doesn’t have the mental energy to dwell on it. “It’s four in the morning. It’s been eight hours since I was fucking_ abducted _. And I haven’t gotten a wink of sleep because my ex-boyfriend whom I haven’t talked to in_ six fucking months _locked me in his fucking house and spent all night trying to talk me into_ marrying _him. I’m not okay and I don’t want to talk about it.”_

_And, oh God, hearing it out loud, in her own harrowed voice - it sends her grappling at the window switch and rolling the window down, sparing a thought for Raoul before she leans out and retches once, twice - emptily - into the rush of cool, predawn air. She hasn’t eaten since before the performance; she hasn’t had anything to drink since the glass of red wine at Erik’s house hours ago, minutes before he’d refused to let her leave._

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. How had it come to this?_

_“You should press charges,” Raoul says as they take a right, not bothering to stop for the stop sign at four in the fucking morning. “Who knows what might’ve happened if I hadn’t shown up? He’s dangerous, and you need to stay away from him as long as you’re still on campus.”_

_She’s shaking her head before he’s finished talking, twisting her ring - but no, she’s not, she’s rubbing the skin of her finger because the slim golden ring is gone; she’d flung it in Erik’s face mere hours ago. “I can’t press charges - I won’t. It’d be such a mess.”_

_“Chris, you deserve - ”_

_“Do you know what it’d do to my candidacy? I just want my degree, Raoul, and I want to get out of here. That’s all I want.”_

_And it’s true, all of it - it would destroy her, her emotions and reputation and perhaps even her doctoral candidacy if everything were to come to light. Their relationship hadn’t exactly been illegal; only, Erik had been all set to be on her thesis judging committee, and the past six months had seen her sporadically entertain a fleeting sense of relief that they were now off the hook in that regard._

_Only sporadically, because God, it’d been hell - to have run away from him like that, mask on the ground and pain in his eyes, and then to simply be… avoided for the next six months, as definitive a breakup as she could get - it had left a gaping hole that she’d tried her best to fill with final classes and recital prep and the anticipation of, at long last, accomplishing the goal she’d set out to achieve, receiving her doctoral degree, and then just this night she’d done it -_ performed _, the culmination of three years of work, and then Erik had rematerialized and torn that hole wide open again with all the force of a battering ram and all the pain of a mortal wound._

_She wants out._

_At this point, she isn’t even willing to tolerate a delay. She wants her degree, and she wants to leave this town. Hell, she wants to leave the country - and she will. She wants to start over._

_She wants - she wants -_

_If only they’d each stayed calm, talked it out; if only he hadn’t turned into nothing more than a psychopathic ex. He’d had no idea how to do relationships, she’d known this - it was unacceptable what he had just done, and yet she knows that if the unmasking had gone differently, if they’d stayed together those six months, then this would not have happened._

_“I’ll be fine, Raoul.” She shuts her eyes tight, hoping that if she squeezes them hard enough she can white out the image of Erik on his knees before her, eyes dark and imploring and feral, sacrificing his body and soul on the altar of her love. “I’ll be in Paris in two weeks, assuming they pass me. I won’t stick around.”_

_“Chris - ” but he breaks off, choked and unhappy, and his knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. She might feel more sorry for the state he’s in if she weren’t so furious herself. She doesn’t speak._

_What is there to say?_

_“Raoul,” she says anyway, after a while, and stares straight ahead as he whips around to face her. “Thank you for coming.”_

_“Of course,” he says, turning back to the road, and the flickering light of a passing car throws his profile into sharp relief as she hazards a glimpse at the man beside her. A fellow doctoral candidate, her high school ex-boyfriend, now just a good friend - she spares a moment of gratitude for Raoul and the easy relationship they’ve settled into, so contrary to the fucking rollercoaster ride of the past fifteen months and the sickening plunge of the past six._

_She wants nothing more than to run away, to leave it all behind. She wants nothing more than peace._

_And when the cadence of the car and of her own raw breaths begins fading into still, blessed silence, she lets it._

➳ ➳ ➳

She’d absolutely loved Paris. The sights, the food, the fashion - the people as well, of course, several other fellowship recipients and then an entire host of world-class artists and musicians. Her inferiority complex had very much been alive and well those first few weeks but she’d gradually settled into her hard-earned place among the vocalists, loving the music, rising to the challenge, marveling at the reality of her life for the next eight or so months.

Paris. She was in _Paris!_

Almost all of the other fellowship recipients had been much more well-traveled than she, and though group outings to cafes or local markets had quickly become a fun and regular occurrence, she’d balked at the idea of outing herself as nothing more than an excited tourist by asking to go to this museum or that. Nonetheless, she had quickly begun receiving annotations on maps and recommendations on what to do, what to see, how to navigate Paris as a foreigner, and she’d accepted them all with humbled gratitude. 

But she’d often found herself wishing that she had someone to see the sights with, in that first month or so before Raoul had arrived - and even after he’d left, after she’d already grown to know and love the City of Lights.

She’d bought herself an annual membership to the Louvre early on and sometimes, when she visited, she’d be hit with the feeling that there was someone she was meant to be viewing the artwork _with_. That she’d talked about this in detail, and planned little things to do; that she’d fully intended to take a funny picture with the Mona Lisa, only she’s alone right now with her purse and camera and asking a stranger to do it for her doesn’t feel quite right. 

A lot of things don’t feel quite right, these days.

The rain is pelting down ever harder now, chilled and forceful, and something within her loosens when the looming brick of the music building finally comes into view. 

It had almost felt like that, funnily enough, like deja vu - a peculiar combination of excitement and anticipation and _familiarity_ with certain landmarks she’d visited across Paris and in the surrounding countryside. As if she’d seen it before, learned about it before, in another life - the whisper of comprehension, of intimacy, the strangeness of staring up at the facade of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris for the first time in her life and just _knowing_ that inside the rooster atop the spire was hidden three relics, among them one of the thorns from Christ’s crown, without any recollection of where she would’ve ever gotten that little fact from. 

Other times, it had felt more like grief.

She’d been out walking once, across the Pont des Arts, when she had been hit with a pang of sheer _longing_ that had practically winded her, stealing her breath away. It’d left her clutching at the metal railing, staring at the Bateaux Mouches traveling down the Seine and simultaneously at nothing at all, as her heart had pounded and her fingers had clenched and she’d reined in the desperate, wild sensation of _loss_ that had washed over her entire being like an icy wave. When she’d tried to probe at it later, pin it down, the closest she could get was somehow the loss that came with growing up… with realizing, slowly but surely, that magic was not real and that an entire childhood full of otherworldly stories and fantasy lands and mystic dreams was simply that - a dream, and nothing more.

She walks up the path to the music building and turns left, following the brick facade along to the mess of alleyways in the back, lost in thought.

When exactly had she stopped thinking about magic?

➳ ➳ ➳

_“I got it! I got the fellowship!” she squeals as she bursts through the door of Erik’s office, breathless and flushed and happy. He is off his chair in an instant, bounding around his desk to scoop her up into his arms, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around his limited office space. He barely avoids swinging her legs straight into one of his many filing cabinets._

_“I knew you would. Congratulations, angel,” he murmurs into her hair, and as soon as her feet touch the ground again he’s cupping her face in his hands and kissing her, whispering it against her lips. “I’m so proud of you.”_

_She kisses him back soundly before pulling away._

_“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, and I have you to thank for it,” she says, giddy, on top of the world, and her mind is already alive with beautiful images - the two of them walking alongside the Seine, hand in hand, fastening a lock to the Pont des Arts; dining atop the Eiffel Tower on a lovely summer night; strolling through a Parisian street market, her in a sundress and Erik in the sun, necessarily masked yet unquestionably, incandescently_ happy. 

_She absolutely cannot wait, and she says so._

_“You’ll finally get to take me around Paris,” she murmurs from within the circle of his arms, revelling in the sensation of his beating heart. “What does it say about me that I’m actually excited for you to start mocking my French?”_

_“It says I love you, and you know it.”_

_“I do.” She kisses him, quick but firm. “I want to see everything we’ve looked at in your pictures, and more. You better not let me down.”_

_He devours her in response, grasping and needy, and she welcomes it gladly - but eventually she realizes that there is something foreign in the freneticism of his mouth upon hers, the grip of his hands upon her, increasingly tight in their hold - uncharacteristically so._

_She breaks the kiss and frowns. “Erik, what - ”_

_“Marry me.”_

_She stills, pulling back to look at him._

_“What?”_

_“Marry me.” And oh God, he’s completely serious, boring into her eyes with the deadly earnestness of his expression. “Marry me, Christine. Say you’ll spend your life with me. Say you’ll be mine.”_

_“Erik.” She begins to step back but he doesn’t let her, his grasp tightening, and she stiffens. “Erik, I… what brought this on?”_

_“Just say yes, angel,” is all he says. “Just say yes, and then we’ll do Paris - whichever way you want. We can get married as soon as tomorrow night, and then we’ll book our tickets to Paris together. It’ll be as if nothing’s changed - we’ll see the sights - ”_

_“Then why do it?” She knows she sounds bewildered, but she doesn’t care. “If it changes nothing, then why do it? What difference does it make?”_

_“It makes all the difference in the world,” he snaps, clearly defensive now, and she recoils._

_“Is it… is it a religious thing? Travelling with someone you’re not married to?”_

_Erik barks out a laugh; it grates on her ears. “Don’t tell me you aren’t convinced of my atheism by now, angel.”_

_“No, I meant - you know, morals, and all - ”_

_“Fuck_ _morals.” And then Erik’s grip on her is tightening even further, his fingertips digging into the flesh of her upper arms, and she’s not scared - she doesn’t think she could ever be scared of Erik - but she’s nervous as all hell, and surely he can hear the frantic beating of her heart -_

_“Marry me, Christine. Please.”_

_What is she supposed to say?_

_“I can’t, Erik,” she stammers, reaching up to latch onto one of his hands, silently begging him to relieve the vice-like pressure. “I love you, but I’m not ready. There’s so much in flux, and I - I want to wait, you know? At least a little while. You - I’m not saying_ no. _”_

_His eyes are darkening before she’s finished and then he’s releasing her, stepping away and running a hand over the visible portion of his face as awful anxiety roils in her gut._

_“Why,” he says eventually, flatly, and her heart sinks._

_“I told you. There’s going to be so much going on these next few months, and I’ll need to adjust to Paris, and - ”_

_“No.” He strides over to look her in the eye, pinning her to the spot. “That’s not good enough. What is it really, Christine? Did you truly not see this coming? Or did you simply plan for it to never happen at all?”_

_“Erik, what are you talking about - ”_

_He talks right over her and everything is falling, falling, falling apart. “Is it my fucking_ face _\- ”_

 _“No,” she breathes, and now she’s just mad. She’s never seen beneath the mask but she’d accepted it from the moment they’d met, and she is sure he knows it, and his accusation is simply unacceptable. “No, what the_ fuck _, Erik, I’ve never cared about that, you have no right - ”_

_But she’s wondered, hasn’t she?_

_“I should’ve known it would never last,” he is ranting, and she wants to grab him and shake him and scream. “It was a fever dream to think otherwise, I suppose. Why would you marry a man who’d never show you his face? Why the_ fuck _would you do that? It was unfair of me to expect more from you.”_

 _It’s on the tip of her tongue, to berate him for his idiocy, to pull him toward her and show him exactly how much she wants him, how much she cares - but oh, she’s angry now, furious beyond belief, and the small part of her that had always_ wondered _is surging to the forefront right now, provoking her into getting into his face, airing out all the little insecurities she’d buried over the course of their relationship. “I don’t know what I expected from you, but I thought a little trust was reasonable! I would’ve happily gone forever without asking you to take off your mask! That’s pretty goddamn big of me, don’t you think? I guess you wouldn’t know how many times I wondered if you’d ever trust me enough to - to - a million times, Erik! And, by God, I think I have the right - ”_

_And then, in the very next moment, his mask is in her hand, and there is horror in his eyes, and everything is falling apart -_

_She’s running out the door now, running away from his office with tears in her eyes and a hurting heart, but - for now - she’s still here._

_“You shouldn’t have reacted that way,” she says, stone-bitter and sad. The next six months are only a tickle now but she knows, she_ knows _that whatever had happened, whatever had broken, this is the moment that had made it splinter. “You could have given me a little more credit.”_

_“I know,” and it’s Erik’s voice but - oh God - it’s Erik as she’s only ever pictured him in her head, the Erik who had built himself up all the way to a professorship at a prestigious music school mostly out of sheer spite, the Erik who had always tried so, so hard to express his emotions properly around her; the Erik who had never gotten a chance to really, truly live._

_“I know,” her Erik says, and it’s too little, too late, and she clamps her palms over her ears as this one slips away, too._

➳ ➳ ➳

It’s odd that there’s a secret door in the alleyway behind the music building. What’s more odd is the fact that she knows exactly where it is, and how to open it. 

_6-6-6._

She punches the numbers into the rusted panel and the lock releases with the faintest hint of a _click._

A blast of warm, musty air hits her as soon as she opens the door; she breathes in, deeply. She’s missed this. How many hours has she spent in the crevices of this building, staying in the practice rooms till late, poring over research in the one of the basement carrels of the music library or standing upon a spotlit stage? 

One whiff of stale air, and it’s all come rushing back as if she’s never left.

Her life of the past two years has been a series of appoggiaturas, grace notes taking precedence over the melody, tiny flitting delays before the essential note. She doesn’t want it anymore, she thinks, despite their twanging loveliness. She thinks she wants things to start falling in place again - acciaccatura, the main note on the beat, steadfast and sure.

She doesn’t know why she’s standing outside a secret door, staring into the dark bowels of the music department as if it’s another momentous delay, another tremulous breath before the next note of the melody of her life. She doesn’t know why she’s out here in the rain, waxing melodic; she doesn’t know why she’s here at all, only that there is one way she can feasibly go and that is forward, into the building she knows like a second home, into the dark.

Christine Daae sucks in a deep, numbing breath and steps inside, over the threshold, out of the rain.

➳ ➳ ➳

_She steps into the tiny back hall, carefully, quietly, shutting the door with a near-silent click behind her._

_In the next breath, she is being whirled around and pulled back against a firm, broad chest, and she can’t help the sharp gasp that escapes her._

_“Shh,” floats into her ear, rich and rumbling, sending warm goosebumps prickling across her skin. “What part of ‘secret lesson’ did you not understand?”_

_“I don’t understand why it has to be secret,” she retorts, grinning like an idiot. He’s started pressing kisses up and down the side of her neck and shoulder and it’s tickling just a little - she’s squirming and smiling and oh, it should be illegal to be this happy._

_He speaks against the shell of her ear, right after laving his tongue all over it. “After hours. We’re not supposed to be here.”_

_“And we couldn’t go on a normal date because…?”_

_“You know only Sasha’s is open this late around here,” he says smoothly, finally turning her around to face him. “And as much as I love the place we had our first date, I figured a change of scenery might be nice.”_

_“Mm. Nice for what?”_

_His answering smile is wicked. “Well, why don’t you come with me and find out.”_

_They end up in his office with all lights shut off but the small desk lamp, an antique Persian glass lamp with red and yellow patterns that had apparently been a tenure party present from Nadir; he’s in his chair and she’s in his lap, and what they are doing is decidedly_ not _having a lesson._

_“Breathe, angel,” he whispers against her clavicle, and she’d slap him if it weren’t for the location of his hand; instead, she sucks in a long, low breath that whistles through her teeth._

_“You know,” she says distractedly as he moves on to the corner of her jaw, “you are so dramatic. 666, really?”_

_“What of it.” He captures her lips again in one long, searing kiss and then leans back, looking smug. “Easy to remember.”_

_She gazes at him, dazed and still very, very much on edge. The gold of her ring, the one he’d given her for their one-year anniversary, glitters in the light of the lamp._

_He’s given her countless little gifts just like it - but also the gift of sheer, incandescent happiness. Five months ago she hadn’t known it was possible to have one’s existence revolve around someone else, much less that it was possible to be so damn_ happy _about it._

_“I rather think you’re the dramatic one in this relationship,” Erik is saying, running his thumbs over the curve of her hips. “Stressed out of your mind over a shoe-in. Really, Christine, you need to -” his hand slips down and she bucks, not missing his infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk - “relax.”_

_“Is that,” she manages, moving erratically in his lap, “why you called me here? Because you think I need to_ relax?”

 _“No, you’re here because I want you here,” and she slams her eyes shut and breathes,_ hard _, but then he’s cupping her jaw with a gentle hand and she opens her eyes to find him looking right at her, serious and keen. “But honestly, angel, there’s no reason for them to not accept you. You’re extraordinary.”_

_“And you’re biased,” she huffs, but it’s with a smile. She wouldn’t have even thought about applying to such a program, much less one of the most prestigious post-grad musical fellowships in the world, if it hadn’t been for Erik’s unflagging encouragement. He’d believed in her, and for that alone she’d tried._

_She loves him so goddamn much._

_“I love you,” she says, still locked into his gaze, and then she’s lying on his desk and he’s upon her and she’s aflame; out of the corner of her eye, the warm hues of Persian lamp-light are starting to flicker._

_Panic rises sharp within her._

_“No,” she says out loud, sitting up, raising her voice to the darkened ceiling. “No, I want to keep this one. Let me keep this one - I don’t want to lose this!”_

_“Christine.” Erik’s voice sounds soft, sad; it sounds exactly like she’d expect it to sound because that’s all he is right now, isn’t he? A piece of her imagination. “Christine, angel, let it go. It’s too late.”_

_“I’m sorry,” she says, sadly._

_“I’m sorry too, angel. I’m so sorry,” Erik says, and already he’s slipping away, face and mask blurring together in a haze of white. “I’m sorry for everything, Christine.”_

_“I forgive you.” She says it, and finds that she can’t stop. “I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you,” but he’s gone now and she’s already forgotten what she would be forgiving him for._

➳ ➳ ➳

She can’t help reaching out to palm the cold doorknob, grasping and twisting it, blinking at the sight of a slightly dusty but empty practice room with an ancient-looking piano and a full-length mirror. As out of the way that it is, she’s not surprised that it looks unused.

She shuts the door behind her and walks on.

She wanders down the hall, meandering, testing unlocked and locked doors alike - what is she looking for? There’s no sign of life anywhere, and she’s trying to think of the last time she was here on a Valentine’s Day. There’d been auditions going on, she knows - had she been involved? Had she… _missed_ an audition, this night two years ago? 

Had it been raining then, too?

One way or another, she ends up in an old auditorium, the smallest of the four the building holds, and looks around the empty room.

_What is she looking for?_

Her feet carry her up the creaking steps. She walks to center stage. She stops, scanning the rows of the darkened seats, the stage light in her eyes.

Well, she’s come all this way… 

She opens her mouth, and sings.

Her voice has gotten markedly better even to her own ears, she notices with a small burst of satisfaction by the time she’s transitioning into the second verse. Who would’ve thought eight months of intensive workshopping and private lessons would pay off? She loves this, always has - from sing-alongs and mini-concerts with her violinist father as a little girl to choir, chamber, acapella in high school to music major in college and finally her doctoral degree in voice performance, she’s loved this. The thrill of singing and of singing _well_ , of pushing her voice to greater and greater heights, mastering genres with a versatility all her instructors had loved, a talent she’s sure was what had gotten her into the fellowship program in the first place. 

This is what she was born to do. She’ll never stop, not if she can help it. 

She sings, and sings, and then tapers off sweetly on the last note, bringing the song to a pitch-perfect end. She closes her eyes and lets it settle into her bones, the peace that she now knows she’s been looking for all night and for _so long_ ; it’s striking how fiercely she feels it now, like warmth diffusing through every cell in her body, like something that’s just clicked into place, like the knowledge that she is finally home.

And then, out of the darkness, a voice:

_“Brava…”_

➳ ➳ ➳

_She’s been distracted all day._

_“Focus, Christine,” comes his voice,_ the _voice, intoning her name like only he ever does - as if it’s music, a two-note melody with all the weight of a sonata. “Relax your shoulders - breathe through your nose, that’s it, now start again. From the top.”_

 _She follows his instructions to a T and begins the piece anew, winding her way through the first verse. Impressive, really, given that all she can think about is how much she wants to_ kiss him.

_It’s been an issue for a little while now, that._

_It had taken her all of three days to call the number and accept his offer. It could’ve been a no-brainer, perhaps, on the basis of his academic reputation alone - beyond the eccentricity of the mask and the rumors that the elusive Professor Devereux was an ex-convict, an ex-spy, or simply a weird human being, the entire department upheld the consensus that musically, the man was a genius. She should’ve jumped at the opportunity._

_But really, the guy is so damn hard to_ read _._

_It is April; they’ve been doing lessons for two months now, and she cannot decide for the life of her what’s going on in his mind. He’s been a fantastic teacher so far - harsh yet constructive, demanding yet honest - and it’s actually a little startling how quickly she’s progressed in areas she hadn’t even thought needed improvement in the first place._

_The quality of his instruction is not the problem. It’s the awful, insane crush she has on him, and her inability to determine whether it’s reciprocated at all, to any degree whatsoever._

_It’s the utter professionalism with which he conducts their lessons, and the way he looks at her when he apparently thinks she’s not aware. It’s him correcting her posture far more than necessary and the fire in his eyes when they inevitably devolve into another argument, butting heads, only it’s a burning heat that threatens to consume her whole. It’s the fact that he’d gotten her to tell him about her father, about her family, and even about Raoul without her realizing what he was doing until it was too late; it’s the fact that she can’t stop staring at his hands as they run up and down the keys and the fact that, holy hell, she’s never found talent so damn attractive before._

_She’s stubborn, and he’s arrogant, and when they clash it’s the most exhilarating thing she’s ever experienced; but he never fails to walk her to the station, or forbid her from singing and bring her tea when she’s overworked or just exhausted, or help her with her coursework and research in a million different little ways as soon as she brings any of it up._

_Her life has become a lot more meaningful with Erik in it, and she’s so immensely grateful for that fact. Now, if only she can figure out_ what’s going on _-_

_“Christine!” The piano chords clatter to a stop as Erik throws up his hands, visibly exasperated. “If you need a break, take it before we begin! For Christ’s sake - ”_

_She’s had enough, and in the next beat she’s rounding the corner of the piano and kissing him._

_Wait - oh, God -_

_She pulls back, and he’s staring at her, utterly frozen, an unreadable look in his eyes. Shame floods her instantly, shame and humiliation and horror - “Oh my God, I’m sorry,” she begins to blabber, backing away. “I - I thought - I’m sorry, I’ll leave now, I swear - ”_

_“Christine.” He rises from the piano bench, cutting her off, and in one fluid motion his hand is at the small of her back and he is pulling her toward him, something like awe in his eyes - “my darling Christine, my angel - ”_

_And then he’s kissing her back, and she is stunned, happy, euphoric, bursting heart full to the brim, as the darkness creeps in and she holds onto the moment for dear life -_

➳ ➳ ➳

She stiffens; the unexpectedness of it should be enough to give her a heart attack but for some reason, there’s a strange electricity humming across her skin, and it’s not from fear. “Who’s there?”

There’s a long pause, a silence in which she begins retreating toward the far side of the stage, less creeped out than she’d expect but sufficiently startled to have her guard up. “Hello?”

“Don’t leave,” comes from somewhere across from stage left, and then there’s a figure, a man rising from the third or fourth row of seats and moving out into the aisle. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She watches him approach with assessing eyes. 

“You have an extraordinary voice,” he calls, and he’s close enough now for her to make out the slate grey button-down, the tall, lean build, the slightly-mussed hair. “Are you a student here?”

“Me? No, I graduated last May,” she answers, rooted in place. 

“Oh, really? I teach here - what is your name, if I may ask?”

There is no hesitation to be found when she looks for it. “Christine. Christine Daae.”

“Hm. I don’t think I’ve taught you before,” he says, closer now, stepping into the light, and the sight of the white half-mask sends a jolt of electricity crackling down her spine, hot and cold and inexplicably intoxicating; it’s not fear. There’s a thoughtful expression in his illuminated eyes - warm, expressive eyes, she notes vaguely, strikingly familiar… 

No. No, it’s not fear. It’s something else.

“Erik,” he says, extending a hand, and she has to bend a little from her position atop the stage to shake it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you as well,” she responds automatically, and without stumbling over her words. Thank God for small favors.

Erik steps back - he’s assessing her too, she realizes, and the thought is less disconcerting than it probably should be. “Well, Christine, what are you doing here at this hour? I thought I’d be the only one haunting the premises.”

She chuckles, surprising herself. “Ah, I… I haven’t been back here since graduation and I guess I just happened to be in the area? Thought I’d take a look around, heh.”

“I see.”

He’s looking at her, and she’s looking at him, and there’s something stirring deep in her gut, something dangerous, something - _lovely._

“I’m just… going to go, I think. It’s pretty late.”

He seems to startle, stepping back. “Yes. Yes, of course. I hope to hear great things about you in the near future, Christine Daae.”

A bashful smile creeps across her face and she ducks it, slightly. “Well, one can hope. Good night, Erik.”

They stand around awkwardly for the space of a few breaths, and then he’s stepping aside and she’s moving around him with an apologetic smile, making her way around the seats to the main aisle, wracking her brain over when exactly _Erik_ had become her favorite name and over why - despite her current trajectory, headed straight for the double doors leading out of here - she doesn’t want to leave at all.

A rustle; the sound of footsteps from behind her, the first stirring of sharp relief.

“Wait.”

She stops and turns, and looks at him.

➳ ➳ ➳

_She hates the rain. Really, truly hates it. But she can’t afford to care right now, not when she’s sprinting through puddles and peering through speckled glasses, trying her damndest not to slip and fall. She’s late, she’s so late, and she’ll be so mad at herself if she misses the audition entirely - she’d signed up for one of the later audition slots, too._

_Brilliant move, Christine. Really. But how was she to have known the train to campus would be so delayed?_

_She all but barges into the dry warmth of the music building, haggard and breathless, nearly slipping on the floor as she makes her way to the auditorium. The smallest auditorium of four, actually, not counting the black boxes, and the furthest away from the entrance, because_ of course _; she whips off her rain-streaked glasses when she’s halfway there and has the foresight to try to wrangle her hair into a semi-decent bun._

_It’s all for naught, though, when she arrives to the sight of an empty hallway and a wall clock telling her that the last audition slot had ended thirteen minutes ago. She could practically cry._

_“Damn it,” she whispers._

_The darkened auditorium, silent and empty, swamps her as she wanders inside, letting the light of the single spotlight on stage guide her steps as the door swings shut behind her. It mocks her as she walks forlornly down the aisle; she climbs the steps to the stage, dripping water behind her, and stares out at a sea of empty chairs. A ghost audience, ghost audition judges, she thinks out of nowhere, and snickers despite herself and her own sorry state._

_Well, she’s come all this way…_

_She finds herself moving to center stage, right under the glare of the spotlight. Why not? There’s no one here to see, no one to embarrass herself in front of in her pitiful state. The stakes are nil. She’s got an audition piece prepared, and there is no reason in the world she shouldn’t just go ahead and sing it right now. Why the hell not?_

_So she does._

_Two minutes later she finishes on a rather ungraceful note, softening it prematurely and trailing off into nothing; she winces at herself. God. Perhaps she wouldn’t have gotten into the ensemble after all. She’d thought it might be worth a try, a contemporary acapella group she thinks she would’ve had a lot of fun with, but perhaps it’s for the best that she's missed her audition. She’s busy enough as it is, what with her coursework and the looming pressure to begin thinking about her final recital despite it being more than a year away, and she comforts herself with this statement as she walks across the stage, preparing to take the stairs down._

_And then, suddenly, from somewhere within the darkness of the auditorium:_

_“Brava…”_

_She nearly jumps out of her skin, darting glances around the auditorium; the overhead spotlight blurs her vision as she begins retreating in the direction of backstage. “Who’s there? Hello?”_

_“Don’t leave,” comes from somewhere out in the audience, halting her in her tracks. “Stay there.”_

_It’s a man, it turns out - a man into a black overcoat with black, slicked-back hair and a_ mask _, of all things, a white half-mask that almost sends her running for the hills. As it is, she is frozen on stage as he approaches her section of the stage from the front aisle, surprisingly not that much shorter than her despite their notable differences in elevation._

_“You’re very good, you know.”_

_Without the acoustics of the auditorium amplifying his voice it sounds richer, deep and full and remarkably genuine, and she finds herself relaxing a little. “Um, thank you? I didn’t know anyone else was here, sorry.”_

_“Don’t apologize. I’d like to teach you. I think you have a lot of potential.”_

_She gapes at him, and then collects herself. “Oh, are you a teacher? I couldn’t pay for more lessons, I’ve already got -”_

_“Screw whoever you’re taking lessons from, I’m better. You know what,” and he’s patting down his pockets, pulling out a brochure and tearing off a scrap. A pen materializes out of thin air. “Here,” he says, scribbling furiously. “Contact me if you decide you want to improve. I won’t charge.”_

_He’s holding it out, waiting, and honestly, what can she do at this point but take it?_

_“Erik Devereux,” she reads quietly, and then glances up to find him watching her. “Wait,_ you’re _Erik Devereux? Oh, the mask, I - ” and she shuts her mouth with a snap. She can’t decipher the look on his face; at any rate, it’d probably be best not to throw_ those _rumors in his face any more than she already has. Dear Lord._

_“The one and only,” Erik Devereux says somberly, and then appears to straighten, leaning slightly away from the edge of the stage. “And you are…?”_

_“Christine. Christine Daae.”_

_“Well, give me a call, Miss Daae,” he says._

_She rubs the slip of paper between her fingers, grounding herself. “This is the part where I leave,” she murmurs as her feet carry her to the side of the stage, taking the steps down._

_Erik nods. “It is.”_

_“I wish I hadn’t.” She draws close to him in the front aisle, wraps her arms around him and burrows her cheek into his chest. “I wish I’d stayed.”_

_He hugs her back, breathtakingly tight. “I know.”_

_“I don’t want you to go.”_

_“I have to.”_

_“Please. Just this one memory - please.”_

_“You know it’s impossible,” he murmurs, and she can feel the rumble of it through his chest and into her cheek. How does she know this feeling so well, well enough to recreate it inside her own head? “You’re erasing me. This is it. I am almost gone.”_

_She wants to cry._

_“Meet me here,” he says, a hand in her hair._

_“I will, I will,” she swears, holding him tighter when she feels his form waver within her grasp. “I will. I promise, Erik, I’ll be here. I won’t forget you.”_

_One last breath, one last expansion of his chest within her arms. To think that she’ll soon forget this feeling, the hard planes of his body, the weight of his embrace, even the sound of his voice…_

_“Oh, Christine…”_

_And then she’s hugging the air, and the empty auditorium is fading into a blank slate, clean and spotless and white._

➳ ➳ ➳

It’s no longer raining as they emerge from the not-so-secret door. Erik is a professor here at the university, he explains, and she remembers him now, instantly recalling the gossip about the eccentric faculty member with the half-mask and the famously prickly personality. He isn’t so prickly right now, she decides, as he fondly bemoans the maintenance of the old auditorium and tempers his stride to make sure she keeps up. It’s no longer raining, but snowing lightly, and Erik remarks on this in short order.

“We’ve been getting a lot of snow this year, it seems.”

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t know - I just came back last week.”

“Were you travelling?”

“I was. Paris.”

“Ah,” he says, and curiosity lights up his eyes immediately. “For business or for pleasure?”

“A bit of both, actually,” and she’s just about to explain the fellowship when her foot goes out from under her and she’s falling, her center of gravity dislodged - until she’s not, a hand at her back and another wrapped firmly around her upper arm. He helps her up and her cheeks burn.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Of course,” he replies, and they start walking again, stepping gingerly over the ice, and then two beats later he’s stopping and turning to offer her his hand. “We can’t have you slipping again, can we?” he remarks, holding his hand out palm up, a humorous lilt to his very pleasant voice.

She smiles, and takes his hand, and the cool, solid weight of it feels more momentous than it logically should. 

“You know, I know a place,” he says as they continue on. “There’s a nice little bar on Winthrop Street - Sasha’s, have you been?”

She can’t remember if she has. “I haven’t.” 

“Fantastic.” He reverses trajectories and she follows his lead, hand still wrapped in his, his presence a strange balm against the snowy cold. Then he stops, and she stops with him. “That is - I mean, would you be interested in grabbing a drink with me? We can just talk. I’d love to continue our conversation.”

The uncertainty in his voice is foreign, uncharacteristic somehow, and she can’t help but find it endearing. So she squeezes his hand. “Let’s do it.”

She watches as Erik visibly relaxes, the mask on his face drooping minutely, and something within her swells with excitement as he squeezes back. 

The tiniest smile curves his lip. “Shall we?”

**Author's Note:**

> The thought I had while watching Eternal Sunshine was essentially just - would our two lovely protagonists in ALW be able to have a healthy, happy relationship if their memories (and associated trauma, pain, heartbreak, murdery horrors, etc.) were erased? I don’t know. I have no idea. Probably not, since they’re still the same people with the same personalities and the same problems. Erik is still Erik and for him to completely change for the better in the course of eight or nine months would be a damn miracle.
> 
> But hey, wishful thinking, amiright? (Happy belated Valentine’s Day!)


End file.
